Yes it certainly did.

I was always that kid who existed to do well in school because that was how I was raised. Get good grades, go to a good college, work the majority of your life, retire when you’re 65, and live off of the savings until you die peacefully in your sleep one night. My parents lived paycheck-to-paycheck, none of us ever went hungry but I could tell they cut down on portions some nights so my brother and I could eat until we were full.

High school was a tough time for me, as it was for many others. I had a couple of friends but it was primarily a school-only relationship, most of my time was consumed by homework. I was terribly shy.

I’d always been interested in programming for a fun activity during my minuscule amount of free time. I sold a few Minecraft plugins in past years, I didn’t make much but I gave it all to my parents, we went out to a fancy restaurant and it was gone just like that.

I moved past Minecraft and started making some fun web projects, after spending my grade 10 summer slaving away at the computer I had made a few Wordpress themes that I thought I’d try to pawn off on some local business owners. They had all the bells and whistles, I was quite proud. I sent probably 15 emails out and not a single person was interested.

The failed endeavor was certainly a blow to my confidence but someone told me about a site where I could sell my themes. Why not, what did I have to lose? It took a few days for the first sale to roll in but since then, it’s been a constant stream.

I’ve sold over 3 million USD worth of themes on this website in the four years they’ve been up.

A couple months in, I had over $5,000 and decided I should probably mention it to my parents. They knew I was selling there but it took off and I wanted to see how long I could keep it a secret to surprise them. Obviously they didn’t believe me at first, I had to show them my balance. We put it in my mom’s savings account and talked to someone about legal stuff and future finances.

By the time I was in grade 12 I was about to become a millionaire and not a single person at my school knew. This wealth brought with it some much-needed confidence, I could wear expensive clothes, go on trips with my family, I really could do whatever I wanted. I decided to drop the news by going out and buying a brand new BMW. It’s funny how people treat you different when you have money, well teenagers at least. I didn’t care that my new popularity was simply because I had a nice car. I still knew who my real friends were, I saw how the popular ones tore each other apart behind their backs so none of them ever became my true friends.

I rented a Rolls Royce for myself and prom date, it was a fun night.

Now I’m done high school, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. I think I’ll probably go to university to study mathematics and computer science. It doesn’t really matter what happens with that, I’ll be learning for the sake of learning.

For me, money has bought freedom. The returns on my various investments and the income from the themes will last me the rest of my life.